The Running Man: Blog Five

Arguably the finest sports book of last year was New York
Times writer Christopher McDougall's Born To Run,
such a colourful account of the world of ultra-running that it was
enough to inspire even the most slovenly to dust off their Asics.
But as well as inspiring this prematurely middle age-spreading
newlywed to get running, Born To Run has stoked a slew of
interest in barefoot running. Yes, that's right, kicking off those
lovely, comfy, inch-thick-soled trainers and pounding the pavement
- yep, even the cold, hard pavement - as nature intended. So a
running discipline that would have once marked you out as a touch
eccentric or hippy-ish, or meant you were Zola Budd, is gaining
ground as a serious running movement.

In the book McDougall tracks down members of a reclusive Mexican
Indian tribe called the Tarahumara, a people able to run
ultra-marathon distances of sometimes hundreds of miles over the
most unforgiving of landscapes with the aid of nothing underfoot
bar, on occasion, a thin piece of tyre rubber. Just to complete the
beguiling picture, the tribe's members generally remain
injury-free. So, as an injury-prone runner himself, McDougall's
curiosity is piqued enough to go in search of the tribe and see
what he could learn from them. He blends a beautifully crafted
road-trip tale of maverick marathoners, mysterious loners and a new
breed of carefree Americans athletes with fresh convention-defying
science from studies around the globe to paint a fascinating
insight into ultra-running and also to provide a convincing
argument for the virtues of running sans sneakers.

One of the many characters McDougall meets while padding his way
around the globe is Lee Saxby, a London-based barefoot running
coach, and while receiving coaching from Saxby, the author has what
he considers an something of an epiphany. As a big fan of
epiphanies myself, not to mention keen to try anything that may get
me moving better, I visit Lee for a one-on-one barefoot (or
"minimalist") running workshop at his studio in London's Hampstead,
organised by shoe brand Terra Plana, which has recently released
its new "barefoot" Evo shoe.

First things first, Lee films me running on a treadmill in my
training shoes in order to record my running motion, which he then
plays back to me. It doesn't make pretty viewing - there I am, 14
and a half stone of pasty flesh, tightly wrapped in my best PE kit,
pounding along, head bobbing like a nodding dog.

"Hmm, this is odd," says Lee, "very odd."

I agree, wincing: "Yes, I know, it's quite frightening really
but I've put on a few pounds recently and my back…"

I stop him there. I've never, in 30 years of sporting endeavour,
not to mention dance-floor failures, been described as
"elegant".

But Lee goes to explain that, unbeknownst to me, I tend to land
on the balls of my feet when I run, which allows my feet to flex
and absorb the impact, meaning the arch can flatten and then spring
back. This is what he, and an increasingly large body of
professionals, believes is how nature intended us to run and could
be the secret to an injury-free running life. Most runners, he
continues, are lulled into a false sense of security by the soft
chunky soles of training shoes, meaning they lengthen their strides
and let their heels absorb the impact - and this is not
natural.

As far as my "elegant" running style is concerned, this is all
just a stroke of luck, but I'll run with it, so to speak.

However, this doesn't, Lee assures me, mean there isn't work to
do on my running style. He coaches me on the subject of running
rhythm and demonstrates how adjusting my running cadence (that is
the measure of how many foot strikes you make in a minute) will
also help to fine-tune my posture, make my running style more
efficient and hopefully help me remain injury-free.

To put Lee's wisdom, the recent scientific studies and the
inspiration from Born To Run further to the test, I take a
pair of Terra Plana's new Evo "barefoot" running shoes away for a
test out in the real world…